Cautionary tale, body damage

Many of us go through a period of denial, simply not believing we are sick enough to get treatment or that we are not as bad as, well, whatever is being implied.

Yesterday I met with the doctor/psychiatrist, nutritionist and assigned therapist. The doctor confirmed my EKG was reflective of my current health (malnutritioned) and would improve once I got better. I figured. I’ll be getting some blood tests this morning for various things. She mentioned that magnesium can help with sleep so is having that checked as well. I’m back to minimal sleep, ugh. The biggest shock/reality check was when I met with my nutritionist who gave me the results of the metabolic test, and other body comps, that I did on Monday. I’m way, way worse than I was when I came in to treatment the first time. I’m in a hypometabolic and catabolic state. Plus my body is burning muscle 3 times faster than normal. No wonder I feel so weak, can’t comprehend or read, and so forth. During the intake I had to have everything read to me and repeated. All the info I got was such a shock. I couldn’t believe I could crash that far in such a short period of time. He said it was because I still hadn’t healed from the last time. He compiled a meal plan that was agreeable with me. Doing it is another thing.

The food

I was so in denial… denial after denial. I really, truly thought that once I got here I’d feel safe to get back into eating; build myself back up in a week or two, then get back to iOP. Facing the food on Monday was a huge slap in the face. I did manage to finish most meals but those were still the minimal plan I had from the previous week. Yesterday afternoon I started the real one. I finished most of my dinner but had barely touched the cup of soymilk. There it sat all through the meal and all through the daily wrap up. Nearly everyone got up and left. I turned to my nutritionist and said I was too full (eyes brimmed with tear). I did try to drink some more of it at that point but it was so thick and filling. He stood up and said I could do it… meaning ‘you have to do it’. I told him it was like liquid ice cream, so thick. He said it wasn’t and to drink it. It was like one gulp (his words) and compared it to the same amount in his glass of water. I said it was 4 sips. I took another sip, shaking, starting to cry… like seriously? Over a glass of soy milk? I finally finished it with some of the other girls encouragements. He said, “cheers”, drank his gulp of water and we all laughed and carried on.

Revelation

I was doing some journaling yesterday. I find it is helpful to start it with a question so I started with: What’s wrong with eating? Why can’t I eat? What does eating mean to me? And so forth. What I realized was that at some point in my life I had decided (I guess) that food was no longer important and therefore irrelevant. I simply couldn’t see the point of eating. To date I can’t understand the whole eating for pleasure concept. It baffles me, confuses me and I don’t like to be confused. I remember seeing a documentary of a woman who had a plug, or whatever, in her stomach and just inserted food – perfect. Except, that is also a way of eating. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not talking about fasting, I simply feel separate from food. It really isn’t of any concern to me; it’s something other people do. I explained this to my nutritionist who said I’ll just have to plug along until I can accept eating on my own again. When I was telling my therapist, as we were developing a treatment plan, I said that I needed to invite food back into my life. That about sums that up, doesn’t it?

I have many other goals and stuff but I’ll put them in another post. Today I start out from the get go with my full meal plan. He has boosted the protein quite high, with food, eliminating protein drinks altogether. I have to eat veggies too and carbs. I preferred to only eat protein, nothing else, if I had to eat. Eating is basically torture but I’m so glad to be here. I need this, I want this. I want to get back to my horses, to iOP and my life. I was quite honest when I told them that all I wanted to do was lay down on the floor and not move. I suspect my stay might be longer than a couple weeks but we’ll see. I’m willing to do whatever they recommend.

I have a mantra I use when eating. I say it over and over and over as I try to finish my meal. It is this:

My nutritionist is always telling us to have patience so I wrote down the definition and kept that in front of me during meals. I now keep it in my kitchen. I need constant reminding that recovery takes time. I feel like this time is authentic recovery which is encouraging.